Terms and Conditions

Data within this service is owned by DHSC and they are the Data Controller. The following additional terms also apply to your use of our site:

• Be Part of Research Privacy Policy, which sets out how we will use your personal data. Users of the service will respect the privacy of personal data as outlined in this Policy
• Be Part of Research Cookie Policy, which sets out information about the cookies on our site

You can only create a Be Part of Research account if you are aged 18 or over. By creating an account, you can easily register your interest in health and care research. As a volunteer, you provide personal information about yourself and give consent to be contacted about research studies.

Once you have created an account you may be signposted to a potentially suitable research study in line with the information you have shared with the service. Please note that registering your details to be contacted, withdrawing your consent to be contacted and/or deciding whether or not to take part in a research study will not impact on your medical care in any way.

The Be Part of Research team will only contact you about studies which are ethically approved and supported by the NIHR. These studies may be run by non-commercial organisations, including the NHS, universities and academic institutions or commercial companies running health research, such as clinical research organisations and pharmaceutical companies.

Research is often undertaken within NHS hospital trusts, but may also be run in other places, including GP surgeries, private clinics and schools depending on the type of research being undertaken.

Should you be interested in finding out more or taking part in the research studies that the Be Part of Research team highlights to you, the research team running that study will provide you with full details so that you can decide if you want to take part.

If you do create an account with Be Part of Research you are expected to follow and agree to standard information security good practice, including:

• not sharing your account with anyone else
• choosing secure passwords and ensuring multi-factor authentication is set up on your account
• ensuring only you access your account; if you permit any other person to use your account, you do so entirely at your own risk
• maintaining your volunteer record, updating the record with any change of details as and when required
• agreeing that the study team can advise the Be Part of Research team which studies you have expressed an interest in taking part in and which you have enrolled on to enable them to measure the success of the Be Part of Research Registry
• only accessing our service using a secure internet connection and ensuring your device has its own virus protection software. For further information please visit the GOV.UK Cyber Aware website

You may stop using this service at any time. Should you wish to withdraw from the service, then you should refer to the “Withdrawing Consent For Be Part of Research account” section in our privacy policy.

Only researchers approved by the Be Part of Research team may use this service. Researchers in the context of this service may be:

• NHS staff
• academic staff 
• researcher affiliated professionals in commercial or non-commercial organisations (for example, study coordinators or project managers)

Approved researchers will work closely with the Be Part of Research team to provide accurate, detailed and up-to-date information about their studies and must:

• confirm that the study is listed on the NIHR Clinical Research Network Portfolio and/or be in receipt of NIHR funding for the study
• include Be Part of Research as a recruitment tool in their approved Research Ethics Committee application, along with the template email to be sent to volunteers
• ensure that the study is registered on ISRCTN or ClinicalTrials.gov (for commercial studies, or those not included in the NIHR CRN portfolio) and that the information on those sites is kept up to date
• provide an appropriate mechanism for the Be Part of Research team to direct volunteers to, e.g., a study website, pre-screening questionnaire or named study team members. This mechanism will be agreed with the Be Part of Research team before authorisation is given for the study to use the Be Part of Research registry to recruit participants
• ensure all personal information of volunteers is only used by partner organisations for the purpose of their organisation’s role in administering this service
• respond to volunteers within the timescales agreed for their study via the Be Part of Research team, to ensure they provide a good experience of the service for volunteers
• take other steps to promote a good experience of the service and their study for volunteers, and to monitor the experience of study participants so that further improvements to participant experience can be made
• provide details of which Be Part of Research volunteers are recruited to the study. Volunteers will be provided with a unique reference number, which they will share with the study team as they are recruited to the study. It is the responsibility of the researcher to ensure that a  record is kept of these reference numbers to submit to the Be Part of Research team
• share the research findings with Be Part of Research volunteers once available

Failure to comply with these terms and conditions, or serious/repeated complaints from participants, may mean refusal of access to the service for current or future studies. The responsibility for ensuring use of the Be Part of Research service is in line with these terms and conditions lies with the sponsor for any given study.

All staff managing Be Part of Research will ensure that the interests of volunteers are promoted and protected to try to ensure a positive experience of volunteering to take part in research, and to protect the integrity of the health and care research system.

Only the Be Part of Research team will access any personal information about volunteers for the purpose of matching volunteers to opportunities in health research studies using the Be Part of Research registry and any associated activities and nothing more. All information and documentation accessed through the Be Part of Research registry must be treated with the strictest confidence at all times and managed under a duty of confidence in line with prevailing data protection legislation.

Our development and service management team, PA Consulting, holds the data for the Be Part of Research registry on Amazon Cognito, as outlined in our privacy policy. PA Consulting is responsible for storing the data and will not have access to this data except in exceptional circumstances such as needing to access the system to rectify a serious technical problem. In accessing the system in this way, PA Consulting will be expected to ensure robust security arrangements are in place to prevent unwarranted disclosure of any data and have regard to the high confidentiality requirements attributed to any sensitive data they may have sight of during such access.

This service may contain links to other sites. We are not responsible for the content of any third party website and a link to another site in no way constitutes our endorsement of the contents therein.

You may link to the Be Part of Research website, including via the widget we provide, but you must do so in a way that is fair and legal and does not damage our reputation or take advantage of it. You must not establish a link in such a way as to suggest any form of association, approval or endorsement on our part. We undertake tracking of the widget and links through Google Analytics to analyse the source of visitors to the Be Part of Research site.

Although NIHR RDNCC makes every effort to ensure that all information on Be Part of Research is accurate and available in a timely manner, the Service is provided "as is" and we cannot guarantee that

1. the information is accurate, complete or up-to-date
2. this service will meet your particular requirements or needs
3. access to, or use of, the same will be uninterrupted or completely secure

If you find inaccurate information please let us know by contacting bepartofresearch@nihr.ac.uk
We endeavour to provide high levels of service availability. However availability at any point, particularly out of support hours, is not guaranteed. Support is limited to core service hours (9am to 5pm Monday to Friday, excluding bank holidays).

The Be Part of Research website also lists as much of the research taking place in the UK as possible to enable volunteers to search for studies they may be interested in taking part in; this study search element receives study data from the following registers:

• clinicaltrials.gov (http://clinicaltrials.gov/)
• ISRCTN (http://www.isrctn.com/)

The study details in Be Part of Research are not changed from the original source feed and they contain a link back to that original source. Be Part of Research allows the public to search for research studies taking place in the UK from one site. The system does not have the functionality to add, remove, change or delete any of the data provided by ClinicalTrials.gov and ISRCTN.

As the registers providing the study data are external to Be Part of Research, the service cannot accept responsibility or liability for the content of the information provided.

Some study details also come from the NIHR Central Portfolio Management System (CPMS), which is not publicly accessible. This information cannot be removed, changed or deleted by the Be Part of Research team.

These terms of use (together with the privacy notice and cookie policy referred to in these terms of use) set out the entire agreement between you and us in respect of this service.

If you become aware of any breaches in use of this service and the data involved, then you should report it to rdncc.ig@nihr.ac.uk

The Department of Health and Social Care, as the data controller for the Be Part of Research service, owns the intellectual property to this service and is responsible for managing the relationship between the third party study data providers.

The names, images and logos identifying the Be Part of Research website are proprietary marks of the NIHR and the Department of Health and Social Care.

We'd be delighted if you would like to help promote this service. If you wish to copy or use any material, then please contact the team on bepartofresearch@nihr.ac.uk.

Further sources of information are:

Be Part of Research Privacy Policy for this service, which includes within it contact details for GDPR related information requests:

For reporting of anything suspicious or wrong doings in the use of this service e.g. a breach in how this service should be used: rdncc.ig@nihr.ac.uk

For queries about these terms and conditions: bepartofresearch@nihr.ac.uk

The Be Part of Research website and material relating to Government information, products and services (or to third party information, products and services), is provided 'as is', without any representation or endorsement made and without warranty of any kind whether express or implied, including but not limited to the implied warranties of satisfactory quality, fitness for a particular purpose, non-infringement, compatibility, security and accuracy.

We do not warrant that the functions contained in the material contained in this site will be uninterrupted or error free, that defects will be corrected, or that this site or the server that makes it available are free of viruses or represent the full functionality, accuracy, reliability of the materials.

In no event will we be liable for any loss or damage including, without limitation, indirect or consequential loss or damage, or any loss or damages whatsoever arising from use or loss of use of, data or profits arising out of or in connection with the use of bepartofresearch.nihr.ac.uk.

Although we may from time to time monitor or review discussions, chat, postings, transmissions, bulletin boards and the like on Be Part of Research, we are under no obligation to do so and assume no responsibility or liability arising from the content of any such locations nor for any error, omission, infringement, defamation, obscenity, or inaccuracy contained in any information within this location hosted on nihr.ac.uk.

These terms and conditions shall be governed by and construed in accordance with the laws of England and Wales. Any dispute arising under these terms and conditions shall be subject to the exclusive jurisdiction of the courts of England and Wales.

The terms and conditions for Be Part of Research were prepared on 10th June 2024.